Rosalind
by Princesscupcakes
Summary: Rosalind, the beautiful mother of Belle. Beautiful and cruel, a woman who did everything in her power to gain the one thing she wanted, power. MauriceXOC One-shot


**A/N: In my opinion, it's kind of dry, but as I'm writing a multi-chapter story for Belle, I find that this has helped me, at least a little. So I'm posting it. **

**I don't own anything about OUAT. I kinda wish I did. After all, Henry seems like the coolest kid ever to hang out with. **

Queen Rosalind, the wife of King Maurice of Avonlea and the mother of Maurice's only child that was, much to her dismay, a girl, who was named Belle after Rosalind's mother. She was a woman famed for her beauty and her cunning, a woman who was rumored to have had a bit of magic in her and a streak of cruelty. Her husband blindly worshipped the ground she walked on, her servants feared her, her subjects loathed her, and her daughter would desperately try to be the opposite of everything she was. She had a history though, swirled in rumors and speculation. Much of her past is known and yet unknown.

But let's start at the beginning with what we know is fact.

Rosalind was born to Belle and Darion of Westerly, a kingdom that was nestled right between Avonlea and Loxley. Her parents were descended of poor merchants, they themselves barely doing any better. But Belle had bigger dreams for her daughter. Her daughter, her beautiful daughter with dark russet hair and eyes the color of the sky in May, was going to marry above her station in life. Belle dreamed of marrying Rosalind off to a wealthy merchant or a respected knight. However even Belle's own ambition would prove no match for Rosalind's. After Rosalind came into her beauty and quickly gained the reputation as the most beautiful girl in her whole town, if not the whole province, well, there was no stopping her. She had suitors by the dozens, all flocking to her. But none would ever be good enough for her. Rosalind would never be content as the wife of a wealthy merchant or a knight. No, Rosalind wanted to marry a man with power, a man through which she herself would wield power.

She made the decision to not let anyone get in her way. Ambition made her cruel, but it also honeyed her tones. Her rivals in the affections of the men who flocked her would quickly find themselves cut down and have their reputations possibly ruined, even if no substance for the rumors was to be found. She learned early on that beauty may be fleeting, but it gave her a power over others that she intended to wield.

When she was fifteen, it is said that she went and sought out a powerful sorceress and sold her soul for eternal beauty and magic. At twenty-five she was a woman whose beauty should have already begun to age, however she barely looked a day over eighteen. At twenty-eight, however, she was still an old maid, though just as beautiful. Her former flood of suitors was beginning to trickle down into a small stream. She needed to settle down soon or her chance at making a prosperous marriage would soon fade, for no man wanted a woman over twenty five, let alone a woman over a thirty, no matter how beautiful she was.

Everyone expected her to settle on an older flower merchant who gave her roses every day, simply because he knew that she loved them. Instead, as the tales go, it is said that she sought out a man who was known for being able to make dreams come true, at a price, of course. It is not known what she promised this man, this deal-maker if you will, if she indeed ever saw him at all. But from what is known of this deal-maker, he had a propensity for taking first born children. It was a price that Rosalind would have agreed to in a heartbeat if she knew that it would guarantee her power.

At this point, everything about Rosalind is known, from how she met the young and dashing Prince Maurice to their marriage that was begrudgingly accepted by his parents.

The beautiful Rosalind was twenty nine when the young Prince came riding into town. He was the son of the King of Avonlea, the neighboring country, and was visiting Westerly for a chance to woo the Princess Elena when his horse bucked him off right in front of Rosalind's house. From that moment on, he was under her spell. Within a month of their meeting, he was begging his parents to allow their marriage, despite her being five years older, the daughter of poor merchants, and whose reputation wasn't entirely above scandal, even if her own virtue was not in question.

But they allowed it and barely three months after him falling from his horse and into her clutches, they were wed. Less than two weeks after that, her new father in law fell in and died, leaving the kingdom to Maurice, who was inexperienced at ruling and held little interest or talent in the affairs of the state. Rosalind, however, was a different story. From the day after her coronation as Queen of Avonlea till her death barely ten years later, Rosalind had her hand in everything from war to agriculture.

But all was not well for her. At thirty three, she had yet to conceive a child and her husband and his advisors were growing restless. She was getting older and an heir to the throne was needed and soon, if she intended to assure her spot as Queen. Rosalind became increasingly cruel to everyone around her, an example of which comes from the tale of when she beat her servant within an inch of her life with a fire poker because said servant tugged on her hair too hard while brushing it. Unfortunately, that is not the only example of such an occurrence. She raised the taxes tenfold, refused to send help to a district suffering from drought, and turned a blind eye to the beginning rumblings of another war with the ogres. Her husband may have turned a blind eye to her, but his people did not. Rumors swirled about her. They claimed that she bathed in the blood of virgins to keep herself young, that she sacrificed children to pagan gods to retain her beauty, that she herself made a deal with the devil to control the mind of her husband.

The people of Avonlea were growing tired of her and she knew it. She knew that she needed to have a child soon or all would be lost. So she did. At thirty three, an age where most women were conceiving their fifth or sixth child, she was conceiving and later birthing her first. She put all her hope into the idea that this would be a boy, a son who she could mold into the perfect king, a man who would rule the kingdom exactly the way she wanted him to.

The fact that her child was a girl only disgusted her. Rosalind would never carry another child to term, though there would be many miscarriages along the way. The daughter was named Belle, after Rosalind's mother.

She was, at best, an indifferent mother. She often paid her little girl no mind, even though the child would try to please her mother at every turn. If she ever did deign to speak with Belle, it was to tell her that she would never be as powerful as her; that Belle would be married off to the highest bidder like every other Princess and she would never amount to anything besides a Prince's wife and consort and the mother to half a dozen screaming children. Even at five, those statements stung.

Maurice still worshiped his wife at every turn, even as her already very small amount of affection for him cooled, and her beauty never did fade from that of an eighteen year old maiden, even with her growing age. In the last year of her life, her husband gave her a gift. A hand mirror, carved with roses, her favorite flower. It was said to have magical properties and would always show the person at their best and never how they truly looked. By this point, the Queen was already ill. She loved that mirror though and would spend hours every day looking in it, admiring her beauty, and later as the sickness took her mind, speaking to herself in it.

It is said that when she died the whole kingdom made plans to attend her burning on her funeral pyre. The grieved king took it as a sign of love for the Queen. The rest of the population knew that it was just because the whole kingdom wanted to see her burn. Maurice had never gained a talent for affairs of the State and it was discovered that after Rosalind's death, the country was in shambles. The people were broke from the taxes, starving because of droughts, and dying because of Ogres. But the Royal coffers were full. Maurice called in help from Loxley, which was presided over by his old friend Lord Byron, who had a son a few years older than Belle named Robin. The help from Loxley was enough to stave off the ogres for a few years and the manpower gained from Sir Gaston IV after the betrothal of his son, Gaston V to Belle, gave them even more time.

And then the western borders fell. And all was lost when Rumpelstiltskin came and took Belle, Rosalind's first born and only child, who at nineteen was the spitting image of her mother in every way.


End file.
